JDK-8189145 : Define "future" lint category
  • Type: Enhancement
  • Component: tools
  • Sub-Component: javac
  • Affected Version: 10
  • Priority: P4
  • Status: Open
  • Resolution: Unresolved
  • Submitted: 2017-10-10
  • Updated: 2021-02-22
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tbdUnresolved
Related Reports
Relates :  
JDK-8223303 - Compiler support for Switch Expressions
Relates :  
JDK-8189146 - Have use of "var" in 9 and earlier source versions issue a warning for type declarations
Relates :  
JDK-8061549 - Disallow _ as a one-character identifier
Relates :  
JDK-8223305 - Compiler Support for Switch Expressions (Second Preview)
Relates :  
JDK-8151454 - JEP 286: Local-Variable Type Inference
Description
Various language changes, banning underscore, "_", as an identifier (JDK-8061549) and using "var" to indicate local variable type inference (JDK-8151454), create situations where it is reasonable for javac to warn about source constructs that will be forbidden or questionable in future source versions. This includes when a javac is used to compile to older source versions using -source N or --release N, the latter available as of JDK 9.

However, it is also reasonable to allow programmers to suppress warnings today about changes that may or will come tomorrow.

This can be accomplished by defining a "future" lint category, enabled by default, which can be suppressed by SuppressedWarnings.
Comments
[~jlahoda] notes that currently DeferredLintHandler cannot be used in the parser, but has ideas on how to do so.
22-05-2019
Summarizing a conversation with [~jjg], the implementation challenge here has been how to suppress the "future" category warning in cases they are found earlier in the compiler pipeline than annotations are available. Two particular examples, using "_" as a parameter name or "var" has a type name are motivating use cases for this enhancement. Both of those coding patterns are detected in the parser and have properly-versioned handling using the Source.Feature mechanism. However, the parser does not have full access to the information needed to determine "is @SuppressWarnings("future") in effect for this declaration?" That information is available in a later compiler phase. There may already be a mechanism to handle such deferred warnings; if so, it might be usable to implement this feature.
22-05-2019
[~darcy] See com.sun.tools.javac.code.DeferredLintHandler. You can get an instance from the context in the normal manner: deferredLintHandler = DeferredLintHandler.instance(context); See example usage in com.sun.tools.javac.comp.Modules, which is the code to handle module declarations and set up the module graph. Like the parser, this code runs before the annotations machinery is available to determine whether a lint warning should be suppressed or not.
27-11-2018
It's trivial (one word, and one resource) to add a new category; it would be worthwhile having some specific examples of where we will use it. The use case of warnings given in conjunction with older --source/--release options is interesting.
27-11-2018
Re-targeting to new lint category to JDK 11.
10-01-2018